The Moonstone The Moonstone or browse other Shmoopers' Questions In A Nutshell Wilkie Collins was an English novelist writing in the mid 1800s. He wrote a lot of novels, but today, he's most famous for two: The Woman in White and The Moonstone. In these books, Wilkie Collins developed a new way of writing suspenseful novels: instead of having a central narrator who tells the story, Collins composed his novels as a series of first-person narratives, so the point of view in the novels is always changing. The Moonstone is about the disappearance of a precious diamond called "the Moonstone," and the novel is a collection of eyewitness accounts by different characters who know something about its disappearance. The idea was for the novel itself to be like a collection of evidence so that the readers could be put in the position of the detective (or even a jury!). A lot of folks have claimed that The Moonstone is the first English detective novel. That may or may not be true, but it's certainly true that Collins's novel deserves a place in literary history for the impact it had on later writers.

By the time Collins published The Moonstone in 1868, he had already published several popular novels, so he was pretty well known. He was also good friends with the older, more established author Charles Dickens . In fact, Dickens helped Collins out by taking him under his wing and helping to establish him as an author. Dickens was the editor of a couple of different literary journals, and he published The Moonstone for Collins in 1868 in the magazine All the Year Round . Like most of Dickens's novels (and like many novels of the period), The Moonstone was published in serial form. So, like a TV show today, the novel was broken into different episodes and published a piece at a time in the magazine. People were hooked on the story from the beginning. You know the kind of anticipation and hype about popular TV shows like Lost or even reality shows like American Idol ? Or the way people were lining up at bookstores for the new Harry Potter and Twilight books? It was the same way for each episode of The Moonstone as it came out. Members of every social class enjoyed it – servants were reading it in the kitchen while their masters and mistresses were reading it upstairs in the drawing room.

People made bets about where the stolen Moonstone would be found in the end. Why Should I Care? T.S. Eliot , the famous poet, once called The Moonstone "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels." But the cool thing about The Moonstone isn't just the presence of a professional detective as a character – it's the way that the novel is structured. Because it's a collection of first-person narratives and "original" documents, reading it is like going through a pile of evidence. We, the readers, get to play detective. Like the character Betteredge, we might become infected with "detective fever" and find it impossible to stop reading. Besides putting us in the odd position of detective, judge, and jury, The Moonstone also provides us with some interesting glimpses into everyday life in the mid-nineteenth century. Critics like to point to The Moonstone for evidence of how everyday English people thought of India during the nineteenth century. So whether you're interested in the history of British colonialism in India, or just like a good mystery, you'll love The Moonstone.

And be sure you've got a good stretch of time to finish reading this, because once you get started, you're likely to come down with a case of detective fever, and you're not going to want to put it down. The 100 best novels: No 19 – The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) | Books | The Guardian The 100 best novels The 100 best novels: No 19 – The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) Wilkie Collins's masterpiece, hailed by many as the greatest English detective novel, is a brilliant marriage of the sensational and the realistic The 100 best novels The 100 best novels: No 19 – The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) Wilkie Collins's masterpiece, hailed by many as the greatest English detective novel, is a brilliant marriage of the sensational and the realistic Share on Messenger Close The Moonstone is often said to be the godfather of the classic English detective story, its founding text.

TS Eliot, claiming that the genre was "invented by Collins and not by Poe", declared it to be "the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels". Dorothy L Sayers , a queen of crime in the 1930s and 40s, echoing Eliot, pronounced it "probably the finest detective story ever written". Its influence continues to animate the work of crime writers such as PD James . Certainly, Collins adheres faithfully to the rules of detective fiction: a mysterious and compelling crime takes place in an English country house; a large cast of potential suspects is assembled, each with plenty of motive, means and opportunity; an incompetent constabulary is replaced by a celebrated sleuth/ investigator who, after a "reconstruction" of key elements in the crime, comes up with a satisfying explanation of the puzzle, based on a brilliant analysis of the clues. Finally, there's a denouement replete with surprise, excitement and a plausible solution. The Moonstone has this, and more, all of it brilliantly executed. The original crime in The Moonstone, the theft of the Tippoo diamond after the fall of Seringapatam, is Collins's masterstroke.

It connects every detail of the plot to the great imperial drama of India, the society over which Queen Victoria would eventually declare herself "Empress". The Indian factor imbues the tale with the sinister mystery of the east. Mid-century, this "moonstone" is given to a young Englishwoman, Rachel Verinder, on her 18th birthday and then mysteriously disappears. A quest ensues in which, after murder and marriage, the Moonstone is restored to its Indian source. However, although this is classic detective fiction, its greatness really lies in its qualities as a novel. Collins signalled his ambitions for the book in the preface to the first edition, in which he wrote: "In some of my former novels, the object proposed has been to trace the influence of circumstances upon character. In the present story I have reversed the process." So it's the enthralling interplay of character (Rachel Verinder, the hunchbacked servant girl Rosanna Spearman, Sergeant Cuff, the great detective, and compelling Franklin Blake, Rachel Verinder's cousin) that will hook the interest of most readers. Rosanna's tragic obsession with the adventurer Franklin Blake is among the most poignant renderings of thwarted love in Victorian literature.

The fascinating and eccentric figure of Cuff (based on Scotland Yard's real life Inspector Whicher) introduces a figure central to the unravelling of the mystery on whom most readers come to dote. A second, crucial element to the success and longevity of The Moonstone is less about detection than storytelling. This is Collins's virtuoso exploitation of the narrative viewpoint. In this series, we have already seen the power of epistolary fiction ( Clarissa , No 4; and Frankenstein , No 8). Collins first uses garrulous Gabriel Betteredge, then meddlesome Miss Clack, then the solicitor Matthew Bruff, and then the opium addict Ezra Jennings (drawing on his own opium habit). The narrative dividend for Collins is that he can use these different voices to vary the tone and tempo of a complicated (but not impossibly so) plot. The upshot is his masterpiece, a brilliant marriage of the sensational and the realistic. In short, a classic. A note on the text The Moonstone was originally serialised by Charles Dickens, a close friend of Wilkie Collins , in his magazine All the Year Round between 4 January and 8 August 1868.

It was published in three hardback volumes on 16 July 1868 by Tinsley Brothers of Catherine Street, in Covent Garden. A second, revised edition was issued in 1871. In 1877, Collins adapted the novel for the stage, a production that ran for about two months. Subsequently, there have been many film, radio and television adaptations. In 1934, The Moonstone was made into a critically acclaimed American film. In 1959, the BBC made the novel into a TV serial; in 1972, it was remade for Britain and the United States. In 1996, it was remade again, also in the United Kingdom, for television by the BBC, starring Greg Wise as Franklin Blake and Keeley Hawes as Rachel Verinder. It continues to earn its reputation as the founding text of the classic English detective story.

8 Classic Detective Stories That AREN'T Sherlock Holmes | The Huffington Post 8 Classic Detective Stories That AREN'T Sherlock Holmes 01/16/2014 10:08 am ET | Updated Mar 18, 2014 160 Andrew DeYoung Writer Sherlock-mania is everywhere these days. Between the popular BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, CBS's Elementary, and the recent Robert Downey Jr. movies, we can't seem to get enough of the brilliant, moody Sherlock Holmes and his long suffering companion, Dr. John Watson. But sadly, there's only so much Sherlock to go around. What's a Sherlockian to after they've read all four of Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes novels, and every last one of the stories? Luckily for us, Doyle wasn't the first--or last--writer to dream up stories of an eccentric detective solving impossible crimes armed with nothing but his wits and a bit of deductive reasoning. For those who've come to the end of Sherlock Holmes and still want more, here are eight more classic tales of mystery and murder to keep you busy. 1.

Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin stories: Sherlock Holmes may be the most famous detective in literary history--but he's hardly the first. That honor probably belongs to C. Auguste Dupin, the brilliant French detective dreamed up by Edgar Allan Poe. Dupin first appeared in the 1841 story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and then came back for "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter." These short stories established many of the conventions that Doyle would follow years later in his Holmes stories, including that of narrating the adventures of the brilliant detective from the perspective of a close friend. 2. Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: If Edgar Allan Poe is responsible for the first fictional detective, it's Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens's friend and rival, who wrote the first real detective novel, 1868's The Moonstone. Featuring drugs, stolen jewels, fancy parties, a marriage plot, and of course a brilliant inspector, it's a fun story that almost certainly influenced Doyle when it came time to create his own fictional detective. Rex Stout's Fer De Lance: Nero Wolfe may not be America's most famous fictional detective--but he is surely its most Sherlockian.

Solving crimes in New York from his well-appointed brownstone on West 35th Street, Wolfe's got all the right traits to please Holmes obsessives: eccentricities, intellect, and even a loyal companion to narrate his exploits. Another plus: if you like Nero Wolfe, he'll keep you busy for a while--Rex Stout wrote 33 books in the series! Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express: No list of classic detective stories would be complete without the "Queen of Crime"--and of Agatha Christie's many novels, none is more justly famous than Murder on the Orient Express. It's a classic locked-room setup: a train, the Orient Express, is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. Sometime in the night, a passenger is murdered. But his compartment was locked from the inside--so who killed him, and how did they pull it off? The only man who can solve the mystery is another passenger: private detective Hercule Poirot, a character who bears similarities to both Sherlock Holmes and Poe's Dupin. Charles Dickens' Bleak House: Yes, even Charles Dickens wrote a story about a detective.

Of course, Bleak House isn't exactly a detective novel--in typical Dickensian fashion, the detective plot is only one among many--but it does feature one of the first and best detectives in fiction: Inspector Bucket of the London Metropolitan Police. The novel is one of Dickens's longest and most complex, offering a sprawling panorama of social class, poverty, and crime in Victorian London. Bleak House is a doorstop--but it's also a masterpiece. Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret: 19th-century writer Mary Elizabeth Braddon was known for writing what were then called "sensation novels:" narratives of scandal and intrigue set among the upper classes. In Lady Audley's Secret, a barrister named Robert Audley becomes a reluctant amateur detective when he begins to suspect that his uncle's wife might be hiding something about her past. It's a compelling read--and a fascinating window into the strange obsessions of those uptight Victorians. Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The story of Jekyll and Hyde is perhaps best known as a horror story--but it's a detective story too, since the lawyer Mr.

Utterson must become an amateur sleuth to figure out what's going on with his client, the respected Dr. Jekyll. You probably know how this one turns out, but it's still a compelling read, and offers a good look at a mystery genre that was still in its infancy. Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: All right, so it might be too early to label Kate Summerscale's 2009 true-crime book a "classic," but I'm including it in this list because it tells a true story of crime and detection that may have inspired many of the writers I've already mentioned to create their fictional detectives in the first place. Telling the story of a horrifying 1860 murder and the detective assigned to the case, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a vivid reminder that it wasn't just detective fiction that was in its infancy in the 1800s; real-life detectives were trailblazers in a brand-new profession, and the public was still deciding how this new type of law enforcement fit into society. If you're a Sherlockian with an interest in history, I guarantee you'll love it.

Follow Andrew DeYoung on Twitter: Close SUBSCRIBE TO & FOLLOW CULTURE SHIFT Every Friday, HuffPost's Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Learn more Newsletter Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone - UI Victorian Wiki - UIowa Wiki UI Victorian Wiki Full discussion of character analysis Plot Summary The Moonstone begins with a letter telling how the Moonstone (a huge, yellow, and supposedly cursed diamond) was stolen from an Indian temple by John Herncastle during the Battle of Seringapatam and taken to England. The novel skips in time fifty years to a narration by Gabriel Betteredge, a steward for the wealthy Verinder family, relatives of the late John Herncastle. Betteredge has been tasked with telling the story of how the Moonstone came to Rachel, his employer's daughter, and what happened afterwards. Franklin Blake, Rachel's cousin, first brings the Moonstone into the Verinder household. However, he had been followed by three Indians that were possibly looking to steal the diamond and return it to India. Franklin and Rachel hit it off almost immediately and start to fall in love.

Unfortunately for them, Rachel has another cousin, a Godfrey Ablewhite, who is also in love with her. Godfrey seems to be the better marriage candidate at first glance. He is a well established religious man and head of many charities. Franklin Blake also has an extra admirer, Rosanna Spearman, one of the servants. However, neither Rachel nor Franklin pay Rosanna or Godfrey much mind. The night of the birthday party, the Moonstone is (inevitably) stolen from Rachel's bedroom. Rachel is completely inconsolable and takes most of her anger out on Franklin Blake for seemingly no reason. The police are called and find nothing, so Sergeant Cuff, a famous detective, is called. Rachel is so upset by all the activity that she leaves the house and goes to London. However, Rosanna also starts exhibiting some strange behavior. This leads Sergeant Cuff to suspect that Rachel stole the Moonstone herself to pawn off with Rosanna as an accomplice. Unfortunately, shortly after Cuff makes that conviction, Rosanna disappears. She had committed suicide by jumping into the quicksand down by the ocean. She left her final note with one of her friends but only Franklin Blake could claim it.

Franklin Blake eventually seeks Rachel out and asks her why she was so mad at him when the Moonstone was stolen. It turns out, she had seen him take the diamond from her room that night. Franklin immediately starts doubting his sanity because he had absolutely no memory of taking the Moonstone. Luckily for him, he has a chance encounter with Ezra Jennings, a doctor's assistant with some radical theories about memory. Jennings thinks that Franklin had been given opium that night and that's why he could not remember anything. He decides to experiment and give Franklin opium again to see if he will repeat the actions he took the night the Moonstone was stolen. The experiment works, as Franklin got up in the middle of the night and sleepwalked into Rachel's room to take the fake diamond Jennings had set out. The question then became: What happened to the Moonstone after Franklin took it? Franklin re-teams with Sergeant Cuff and they hunt through all the major London pawnbrokers to see if any of them had received an object of great value. They get a tip that the Moonstone will be picked up from the bank at a certain date, so they congregate there to wait.

On the appointed day, a man in disguise comes to pick up the Moonstone. By the time Franklin and Sergeant Cuff catch up to him, he is already dead. The three Indians had murdered him and taken the Moonstone back to India. Read full version of Plot Summary Biography Read Collins Biography History of the Novel The Moonstone was originally published in All the Year Round from January 4th- August 8th 1868 over the course of 32 installments. According to Sandra Kemp, it was originally supposed to only consist of 26 installments, but was so well received by readers that Collins added more Victorian era touches to the novel, increasing it to fill up 6 more issues of All the Year Round (Collins xii). All the Year Round was Charles Dickens’s British magazine that ran serialized fiction on a weekly basis. It was also the launching pad for many other prominent Victorian novels, including Dickens’s own A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. The magazine was cheap and lacked illustrations, in order to appeal to the pockets of mid-19th century readers. Each issue contained 24 pages of writing, formatted into two columns.

According to Andrew Gasson, “Dickens originally liked the story. At a low point in his relationship with Collins, however, he wrote to Wills [sic] 'The construction is wearisome beyond endurance, and there is a vein of obstinate conceit in it that makes enemies of readers.’” Regardless of Dickens’s feelings, the book was popular among Victorian readers. This admiration lived on beyond its era, as famous 20th century literary critic and poet T.S. Eliot is reported to have dubbed The Moonstone as ‘the first, the longest and the best of the modern English detective novel,’ considerably high praise from a man raised in the same country as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In Wilkie Collins’ previous novel, The Woman in White, he pioneered a genre known as the ‘sensation.’ Books in this genre usually addressed a relevant issue from the news, such as insanity, crime, bigamy, or arson (Collins xii). For The Moonstone, Collins chose a style that bridged the gap between the conventional novel and the sensation novel. As Sandra Kemp points out, Collins plays with the expectations his readers have of the sensation with Mrs Merridew at the story’s culmination.

Mrs Merridew expects an explosion that never comes, much as Collins’s readers expect some kind of surprising subject matter to appear at any given time in this novel. In July 1868, the novel was published as The Moonstone: A Romance in 3 volumes by Tinsley Brothers in London, and eventually as a one-volume edition in 1971 by Smith, Elder, and Co. The novel has since been translated in French, Italian, Gaelic, German, and Russian. Read more historical context of The Moonstone Impact of The Moonstone on Literature Rise of the Detective Genre The Moonstone is considered by T.S. Elliot to be the first and best of the detective novels, so many other Victorian writers decided to follow in his footsteps. Tropes Many of the most famous (and infamous) cliches, codes, and tropes in detective novels were borrowed from Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone" in Pop Culture Even though it was written in the 1800s, The Moonstone is still very well known today. Read more about the impact on literature due to Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone.

Themes 1.Gender A lot of gender stereotypes are presented in different narratives in The Moonstone, especially Betteredge. However, a lot of gender stereotypes are debunked and not present in the characters throughout the novel. 2.Religion Religion plays a role, as seen strongly in the Mrs. Clack’s narrative, in The Moonstone, but in varying degrees. Rachel and her mother, Lady Verinder, are Christian and members of the Church of England, but use it for social connections. However, their relative, Miss Clack, is convinced that they're going to go to hell unless they convert to her branch of Christianity. It seems those who talk about religion in the novel are those who are hypocrites. 3.Society and Class In most Victorian novels, servants are often overlooked and seen as props. However, in The Moonstone, the servants are not only vocal, but even given narratives or large portions to speak. 4.Foreignness and “the other” Being foreign or “the other” gives credentials to be not trusted or evil. The diamond Moonstone is from India, and the main characters suspect throughout that the three Indians who appeared at the Verinders' country house are somehow involved in the diamond's disappearance.

Franklin Blake was educated in a foreign country, and Betteredge doesn't trust the "foreign sides" to his character. Ezra Jennings, the doctor's assistant, is only half English – and so many characters do not trust him. 5.Editorial Presence/ Different Narrations It is clear that Franklin Blake is the editor of this collection of narrations which allows him to make footnotes or adjustments to his narrative to defend or clarify others. Calling into question the reliability of the narrators. If the narrator speaks of what they believe is true to us, and it turns out false, the reader has been lied to. 6.Romance/Marriage Like many Victorian novels The Moonstone ends in a marriage sequence. However, while it’s the stolen moonstone not the romance that moves the plot forward. 7.Debt Emotional and fiscal debt are driving forces in this narrative. It is the emotional debt of the Brahmins that prompts them to give up their high social caste in an attempt to recover their sacred Moonstone. As Mr Murthwaite puts it, “If a thousand lives stood between them and the getting back of their Diamond…they would take them all.

The sacrifice of a caste is a serious thing in India…” (Collins 84-85). SparkNotes: The Moonstone: Context The Moonstone Table of Contents Plot Overview Wilkie Collins was born William Wilkie Collins in Marylebone, London on January 8, 1824. Wilkie's father, William Collins, was a famous landscape painter. Collins was educated in England but also traveled in Europe with his family as a child. As a young man, Collins studied to become a lawyer for five years but began writing instead. He published his first book while still in law school—it was a biography of his father, which appeared in 1848 and had good reviews. While still a law student, Collins met the extremely popular novelist Charles Dickens. In 1852, Collins published a short story, "A Terribly Strange Bed" in Dickens's magazine, Household Words. Dickens and Collins soon became close friends and would collaborate on stories, travel together, and remain close until Dickens's death in 1870. Collins' first major success, The Woman in White, was serialized in another of Dickens's journals, All the Year Round, beginning in 1859.

Collins's next several novels—No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868)—were all popular successes, and Collins quickly became famous. At the time of his writing of The Moonstone, however, Collins's health began to decline and would continue to weaken him until his death in 1889, though he would continue to write. For his rheumatic gout, Collins began taking laudanum, a form of opium prescribed by his doctor. Collins quickly became dependent on the drug, and the passages describing Ezra Jennings's opium addiction in The Moonstone are thought to be autobiographical. The Moonstone is considered to be one of Collins's best novels, and it is usually read within two traditions: sensational fiction and detective fiction. Collins himself wrote the first novel termed "sensation"—The Woman in White. The novels which he wrote in 1860s up to The Moonstone exist within the tradition of the sensation novel, a subgenre of the Victorian novel that was particularly popular in the 1860s. Sensation novels seemingly attempted to excite or frighten with dramatic disclosures and somewhat graphic violence.

They took the horror of Gothic fiction and incorporated it within a domestic setting—instead of castles, sensation novels took place in English country estates or London houses. The subject matter of the novels often stemmed from a gripping journalistic story—Collins borrowed details of the case of The Moonstone from the Road Murder Case of 1860 (the crime was the murder of a young boy and the conviction hinged upon a missing, stained dress). He additionally borrowed details of the assault on Septimus Luker and Godfrey Ablewhite in The Moonstone from the media story of an attempted murder on a man in Northumberland Street in London in 1861. In addition to partaking of characteristics of the sensation fiction genre, The Moonstone also inaugurated an entirely new genre—detective fiction. In 1928, the poet and critic T. S. Eliot declared The Moonstone "the first, the longest, and the best of the modern English detective novel." Though mystery stories, such as those of Edgar Allen Poe, predate The Moonstone, it was the first novel to hold an undisclosed crime and criminal as its center and to make the detection of both by professionals and amateurs alike, the process of the plot.

Many of The Moonstone's elements have since become classic features of the detective novel: the eventual conviction of the least-likely suspect; a bungling investigation led by local police and taken over by a more perceptive, slightly eccentric detective; and the "fair-play" format by which no information is concealed from us by the narrator at any given point. Finally, The Moonstone was additionally unique in that it took the English colonization of India as its frame-setting and underlying subject matter. The novel begins with the battle of Seringapatam (1799), an historical event which secured the power of the English East India Company in India—the company which, in turn, ensured the England's presence and predominance in India throughout the nineteenth century. Collins's depiction of John Herncastle's unethical theft of the diamond from the castle of Seringapatam and the rightful restoration of the diamond to India has been read as a critique of the English colonization of India. More Help The Moonstone: Wilkie Collins: 9781848376168: Literature: Amazon Canada Wilkie Collins No Kindle device required. Download one of the Free Kindle apps to start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, and computer.

Apple To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. or Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here , or download a FREE Kindle Reading App . Product Details Publisher: Arcturus Pub (June 1 2010) Language: English Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2.8 cm Shipping Weight: 340 g Product Description Review “The first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe.” (T.S. Eliot, author of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock) “Probably the very finest detective story ever written.” (Dorothy L. Sayers) “Probably the best detective tale in the world.” (G. K. Chesterton, author of The Victorian Age in Literature) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Publisher The Broadview Literary Texts series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, though lesser-known literature. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

By T.NAKAJIMA on Jan. 4 2004 Format: Paperback First published in 1868, Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" has been never out of print. This fact testifies the popularity of the book, but somehow because of the famous comment by TS Eliot, "The Moonstone" is likely to be regarded as 'detective fiction.' The fact is slightly different, and you have to keep that in mind before you read it. The story is absolutely the classic style of "Who-Done-It." The Moonstone, a sacred Hindo stone is stolen from India, and makes its way to the peaceful Yorkshire countryhouse where the rich daughter Rachel Verinder lives with her mother. On her birthday night, however, immediately after the stone is presented to the young lady, it vanishes without a trace. So, who stole it? Or is it just 'missing,' as the inimitable London detective Sgt. Cuff thinks? The story sounds like Agatha Christie (who, like Collins, wrote stories about the British middle-class), but if you are looking for some ingenious 'trick' or something, you will be disapponited.

The story is written BEFORE Sherlock Holmes is born, and though the basic elements of detective stories can be found here, Collins does not use them as you might expect the later writers like Conan Doyle do. I cannot reveal much, but I can tell you that the whereabout of the stone is not necessarily the primary concern of the novel. The most strikingly original aspect of the novel is its characters. Remember, "The Moonstone" is primarily a Victorian novel, and Wilkie Collins is one of the best friends of Charles Dickens, who wrote "Great Expectations" which attacks the idea of 'gentleman.' The story is told by many characters themselves, and they unwittingly reveal the hidden side of their personalities in the narrative. Read more › 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. By Lily Posner on May 10 2004 Format: Paperback The Moonstone is a wonderfully written English mystery novel of the mid 1800s. It tells the story of the path of a stolen Indian gemstone.

The path begins from the day it was stolen from the forehead of a sacred statue of the god of the Moon guarded by three Brahmins (or Indian priests) to and from its journey Yorkshire. While in Yorkshire, the stone is eventually passed down to Miss Rachel Verinder on the day of her eighteenth birthday and within the same night, the precious Diamond is stolen. In several narratives, the theft of the Diamond is described. I believe that The Moonstone was a fascinating and well thought out mystery novel. Although I thought it was a little too lengthy near the end, this was only for the better. Collins uses eight different narratives to re-tell the story of the missing Diamond. The characters develop into believable and helpful elements of the story. The narratives allow Collins to achieve suspense, thrill, and mystery. In my opinion, he has successfully accomplished the true title of a classic mystery novel. 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. By John Austin on Oct.

15 2002 Format: Paperback It was T S Eliot who described Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" as "the first, the longest, and the best of Modern English detective novels". Not everybody might agree with this, but all practitioners, readers, and fans of detective fiction will find much to admire and enjoy in this magnificent 1868 publication. Although not exactly the first example of detection novels, it provides the archetypal sleuth, Sergeant Cuff, an astute though idiosyncratic detective who leads the chase to the solution of the mystery, easily surpassing the dim-witted local police authorities. It also explores the full potential of the whodunit formula. Arguably, it is still the longest example of detective fiction. Unlike most other serialized novels of its era, this one is meticulously plotted. You'll find red herrings, suspense, the unexpected, climaxes that overwhelm or fizzle out, and a satisfying denouement. It is narrated largely by some of the principal characters. All are revealed in well-rounded perspective while carrying forward the story line.

The most popular has always been Drusilla Clack, "that rampant spinster", a self-righteous tract-dispensing lady who likes to eavesdrop and to be judgmental. Is it the best? I would unhesitatingly award it the prize, while welcoming other internet browsers to name other contenders. Wealthy internet browsers are recommended to download the unabridged audio reading of the book. It is a novel that reads well, and the full length reading available is a model of its kind. Naxos has produced an abridged version. It has the benefit of multiple readers, but most of the charm and all the atmosphere seems to disappear in the abridgment process. Book format will put you in touch with the original text and, provided you have the leisure and disposition for tackling a 20 hour read, will provide your imagination, your mind and your literary appetite with rich material. One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. By C.

Sahu on June 26 2000 Format: Paperback The fact that this book has a "classic" label is the real mystery here. I can't think of another "classic" that has such basic and major flaws. I am mystified that, as noted above in the professional reviews, T.S. Eliot thought so much of it. Honestly, the characters in the Moonstone are really ridiculous. I don't mean that they're badly drawn or personally obnoxious. But the reasoning behind their actions is frequently, in fact at many key points, illogical. It's hard to give examples that don't also give away the plot, but, for instance: the Moonstone is stolen. Everyone almost immediately fears that it was taken by the heroine, who ACTUALLY OWNS the diamond and was, in fact, just given it as a present. Why would she steal her own diamond? We follow the merrily skipping Mr. Wilkie down several more garden chapters before he finally suggests that maybe the heroine stole her own diamond in order to pay off debts, from, like, gambling or something!

Even if it had been suggested that the heroine could have incurred any such debts -- which is entirely nonsensical, because she's watched like a hawk by her highly morally exemplary mom and about 50 devoted old servants, and she's an heiress -- even if she could have owed large sums of money, then WHY in the world wouldn't she have just pretended to LOSE the diamond while boating, or have a copy made and replace the original with the copy, or any other of a dozen much more plausible possibilities? Later on, a suicide note (or, technically, a letter that was only to be opened in the event of suicide) goes on for, I believe, 20 close-written pages, carefully explaining all the gaps in the plot up to that time. Read more › Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. Review of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins | The Book Stop Review of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Posted on by curlygeek04 7 Comments I’m still trying to decide if I liked The Moonstone better or The Woman in White… but it’s a silly question, really.

Both books are fun reads, if you can say that about Victorian novels the size of these two books. You can see how they were real cliffhanger reads at the time, and why Collins was so successful. They are full of mystery and adventure and – I think – are not meant to be taken too seriously. Wikipedia says this about The Moonstone: The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. The story was originally serialized in Charles Dickens’ magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered Wilkie Collins’ best novels. Besides creating many of the ground rules of the detective novel, The Moonstone also reflected Collins’ enlightened social attitudes in his treatment of the Indians and the servants in the novel. The moonstone is a gigantic yellow diamond that is originally set in the forehead of an Indian statue but is at some point embedded in the hilt of a sword. The story begins when Colonel Herncastle, a soldier in India in 1799, sees the sword, commits murder to get it, and brings the Moonstone back to England.

Because the stone is of great religious significance to the Hindus, three priests are assigned to guard it – they will do anything to find the stone and return it to India. Anything. Colonel Herncastle is shunned by the rest of the family and lives a fairly unhappy life, probably due to the curse of the stone. On his death he gives the stone to his niece, Rachel Verinder, on her 18th birthday. Franklin Blake, Rachel’s cousin, learns about the curse of the stone and worries that this is not a gift, but as a way to pass on the curse of the stone to the rest of the family. Herncastle tended to hold a grudge. Nevertheless, the stone is given to Rachel and she wears it prominently at her birthday party. Three mysterious Indians are seen outside the house. That night, as she sleeps, the diamond is stolen. The local police come in but find nothing. The family then calls in the highly renowned detective, Sergeant Cuff. The interesting thing about the novel is that it’s written as a series of recollections by the various characters (epistolary means written in letters, journal entries, etc., in case you were wondering).

The characters are asked, a year after the theft, to record everything they remember about what happened. It’s organized so that the characters each write about the segment of time they were most involved in the events, so they aren’t writing about the same events from different points of view. It starts out with Mr. Betteredge, the Verinder’s steward. Betteredge is kind of a crusty old man, though good-hearted. He lives his life by one principle, which is this: all of his guidance comes from his dog-eared copy of Robinson Crusoe. Whenever he’s stressed or confused, he opens up the book and lets the text advise him. Betteredge’s narrative gets a little tiresome at times, and he writes about everything in painstaking detail. Of course it’s unlikely that anyone would remember so much a year later, but the clever thing about Collins’ setup is that the characters are told to record every detail they can possibly remember. It’s not like a journal where you never believe people are going to write in as much detail as they do. Interestingly, this book is sort of the father of the detective novel (although Poe contributed at roughly the same time but wrote short stories).

Collins may be the first to create the character of the “highly-renowned detective” although I wonder how many real-life Scotland Yard detectives were actually famous. Still, it’s a staple of British mysteries that of course inspired Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As in The Woman in White, the characters really make the story. Here, the characters are a little less extreme than in Woman in White. There is no brave-but-ugly Marion, beautiful but simple-minded Laura, or dastardly Count Fosco. However, in addition to the crusty steward, we do get one brilliantly satiric character, Drusilla Clack. Clack is a young evangelist (a poor cousin to Rachel) who also narrates part of the story and drives everyone absolutely crazy with her tracts and religious advice. Franklin, Rachel, Godfrey Ablewhite, Sergeant Cuff, Mr. Bruff and the mysterious Ezra Jennings all play interesting roles in the story. I particularly appreciated that Mr. Bruff, the family lawyer, was one of the more reasonable and thoughtful characters in the bunch (these Victorian writers don’t seem to love lawyers).

While the book is considered to be fairly progressive for its time on issues of race and class (so says Wikipedia) I found the narration a bit dated when it came to views of women. How much of the sexism in the book comes from the views of characters like Betteredge, who is older and knows nothing about women, and how much are Collins’ real views? I struggled with this in Woman in White too. There, he creates this amazingly strong female character, but he also takes pains to tell us how unattractive she is and she is never anyone’s romantic ideal. In this book there are no very strong female characters. Rosanna Spearman is haunting but not realistic. Rachel and her mother are smart and strong women but always seen from a distance. The book also raises some interesting views of medicine at that time. There’s a story line about opium addiction which supposedly is based on Collins’ own experiences. On the surface, this is a fairly plot-driven novel with a good mystery (and a few plot points I didn’t see coming). I also liked that the author seems to be subtly rooting for the Moonstone to stay out of everyone’s hands. At least I was rooting for that.

Are the three Indian men meant to be terrifying, or are they brilliant? It all depends whether you want the Moonstone returned to its native country. A side note: I discovered there’s a novel written about Dickens and Collins called Drood by Dan Simmons, and a pending movie by Guillermo del Toro. Has anyone read it? It sounds like a great read. Share this: The Moonstone | Penguin Books Australia Wilkie Collins The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand. T. S. Eliot famously described THE MOONSTONE as 'the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels', but, as Sandra Kemp discusses in her introduction, it offers many other facets, which reveal Collins's sensibilities as untypical of his era. Format & Editions

Question: Who wrote the novel 'The Moonstone'?
Answer: WILKIE COLLINS